Hi Mel,

I'm a little unsure what it is that you don't know, so excuse me if I
insult your intelligence with my response.

1.  Many people with disabilities use access or adaptive technologies
to enable or improve the way that they undertake various tasks. 
Access technologies are aids or equipment that are designed to provide
access to something or other, e.g. a text to speech reading machine to
provide access to printed material for the print impaired.  Adaptive
technologies are aids or equipment that adapt existing equipment so
that it may be used by a person who would not normally be able to use
that equipment, e.g. the facility to present output from a standard
computer via synthesised speech, so that it could be operated by a
blind person.

2.  When using speech output to operate a PC the software has to
search for various pieces of information concerning what is displayed
on the computer screen so that the user can be informed regarding the
screen content or events that may have occurred.  When constructing
HTML pages many authors produce the screen layout using graphics and
frames.  Screen readers cannot do much with graphics as they are only
pictures, unless the picture is given some text to identify it.  Thus,
to be of any use the graphic needs to have an alternative text label
for the screen reader to read.  Many authors place a hypertext link
within a graphic and provide no means of identifying it, so for a
screen reader it does not exist.  Frames are another problem, in
certain web browsers i.e. Netscape, it is not at present possible to
direct the focus of the screen reader to a frame that may contain
important information or links.  Frames are often used to contain
buttons etc. and this would seem to be the case with the cando page,
thus the screen reader cannot find any useful links on the page. 
Frames may be there for the sighted user but they do not exist for the
screen reader.  A common solution is for a web author to provide a
text only version of the page.  This then gives full access to all
text and hypertext links.  It may not look as pretty but it is
functional and functionality is what I need.

Many web authors do not do their sites any favours by using large
amounts of complex graphics as most people who surf the web do so
using slow dial up connections and usually have graphics turned off
and if it appears that they will have to wait a long time to download
them they will move onto another site.

Hope this helps,

Steve.



> Speaking as a complete newcomer to the Web, I was interested but 
> confused by what was said about the difficulties fir those using 
> "adaptive technologies". Could you give a bit more explation?
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> 
> Mel Nichol
> Welfare Manager
> University of Bath Students' Union
> Tel. 01225 826906
> 
> E-mail [log in to unmask]
> 
Steve Metcalfe
Division of Assistive Resources and Technology
University of Lincolnshire & Humberside, UK
Tel: +44 (0)1482 440550 ext. 4029
Fax: +44 (0)1482 441411
EMail [log in to unmask]


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